Wound dressing that kills bacteria early on
St.Gallen – A St.Gallen team at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology has developed a wound dressing that combats bacterial infections directly in the wound. This helps overcome the problem of antibiotic resistance.
A team from the Biointerfaces laboratory in St.Gallen at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) has developed cellulose membranes that kill bacteria directly on the wound, it was reported in a press release. For this, the team produced fine membranes from cellulose using electrospinning technology. The multifunctional peptides designed by the researchers can bind to cellulose fibers and exhibit antimicrobial activity.
They kill bacteria such as staphylococci, which have largely become resistant to antibiotics. The membranes are therefore an effective method of killing these and other bacteria in the wound. Germs can trigger a long-lasting infection that may fail to heal or even spread throughout the body, leading to life-threatening blood poisoning (sepsis).
In cell culture experiments, the team led by Katharina Maniura from the Biointerfaces lab showed that these membranes are well tolerated by skin, while at the same time being a “death sentence” for bacteria like staphylococci that are often found in complex wounds. “In bacteria cultures, 99.99 percent of germs in the peptide membrane were killed,” explained Maniura.
Her aim is to add other functions to the antimicrobial membranes in future. “The peptides can be functionalized through binding sites that enable a controlled release of other therapeutic agents.”